Featured Long Durational Work

On The Impossibility of the Singular Hand (2014), Joshua Kent

Duration: One week

For one week, the artist lived inside Roman Susan Gallery in Chicago. For the duration of performance, he held a small pile of dirt containing a seed he was attempting to grow over the course of the week. The gallery was open 24 hours a day and visitors were free to come and go. Kent did not ask the audience to bring him anything as he wanted to see if the growing of the seed could naturally become a community project. Sure enough, patrons quickly caught on that he needed their help and brought him food and water as well as various aids for the seed. Each evening, for the duration of the performance, an artist or a practitioner whose practice was relevant to the exhibition came to the space to give a lecture or a live performance. The seed sprouted.

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Joshua Kent is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist. His visual and performative practice navigates the intersection of movement research and sculptural installation.
Specifically concerned with the poetics of the commonplace, his work explores notions of interiority as manifested by way of material objects. Joshua graduated from the performance department of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010, where he was a Presidential Merit Scholar. Recently Mr. Kent was awarded a CAAP Grant from the city of Chicago, and was selected as a 2012 LinkUp Residency Artist at Links Hall. He was one of ten local artists to show in the 2013 Rapid Pulse International Performance Festival, and he was named "Breakout Artist" by Newcity Magazine in 2014. Kent's website can be found here.